Too much work, too little money for local roads

STOCKTON - A number of the 1,600 lane miles of road in unincorporated San Joaquin County need work, and the money available to pay for the $231 million backlog in estimated maintenance cost just isn't there, officials say.

Counties and cities in the state maintain 81 percent of the roads in the state. The condition of these roads are deteriorating, and funding to bring roads back up to speed is expected to fall short...

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Counties and cities in the state maintain 81 percent of the roads in the state. The condition of these roads are deteriorating, and funding to bring roads back up to speed is expected to fall short over the next 10 years. Here are some statistics of area roads from the 2012 California Statewide Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment. Statistics include the total in each county of roads maintained by city and county governments.

San Joaquin County

Miles of road: 3,371

Lane miles: 7,114

Square yards: 61,240,026

Calaveras County

Miles of road: 718

Lane miles: 1,344

Square yards: 9,054,592

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STOCKTON - A number of the 1,600 lane miles of road in unincorporated San Joaquin County need work, and the money available to pay for the $231 million backlog in estimated maintenance cost just isn't there, officials say.

That's about $140,000 for every mile of every lane kept up by county government, said Deputy Public Works Director Mike Selling about a report on the state of roads and bridges, part of a statewide needs assessment done once every two years.

"We're at a critical point, statewide, and in our county as well," he said.

The county backlog doesn't include the $10 million annual ongoing costs to keep drivers moving on county roads. The annual cost for bridges is $9 million. There's a backlog there, too. About $197 million.

More than a third of the county's 268 bridges are more than 50 years old. Most of them are over 40.

State and federal funding needed to keep up the roads have not kept pace, and sources of increased funding in the future are uncertain.

The report also looks at the overall condition of pavement on county roads, on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being best. Since 2008, the index has slid, both in the state and county. The statewide average was 66, the county was 68.8.

"It is a concern, because we're gradually dropping a little bit more behind as we go," said Ken Vogel, chairman of the Board of Supervisors. The Public Works Department has done well using the funding it has, but that sometimes means making quicker fixes rather than reconstructing roads that need it. "Some day it's going to come back to bite us if we don't keep it at a certain level," he said.

The more roads deteriorate, the more expensive it is to bring them back into good condition, Selling said.

"You can wait - a road's not going to disappear tomorrow - but you'll pay later," he said.

The county keeps a database to track where the most urgent needs are. On top of that, someone drives every mile of county maintained road for a first-hand look every two years.

And the county's bridges, though most are more than 40 years old, are safe, he said. The California Department of Transportation checks all the county's bridges at least every two years, but the county checks its old steel and timber bridges yearly, he said.

Every two years, a collection of organizations that includes the California State Association of Counties, the League of California Cities and others coordinates to assess the needs of the state's roads and bridges. The 2012 California Statewide Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment projects there will funding statewide will come up $82 billion short over the next 10 years to bring existing roads up to date.